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will ever get any good from your housekeeper. Good b'ye, God bless you ;-the man shall bring the medicine." So saying, and looking deepest mystery, Crossbone departed.

The apothecary had achieved more than he had hoped. It was very true, thought Snipeton, the woman was cold-melancholy. Again, she had never looked upon him with pleasant looks. Her respect seemed wrung from her: it was not free natural. And yet her eye watched his wife with unceasing regard. Every moment when least wanted, too-she was hovering near her. How was it, he had never seen this before? It was plain the woman had some false influence; exercised some power that estranged his wife from him..

Let us leave Snipeton for a brief time struggling and weltering in this sea of doubt; now trying to touch certain ground, and now carried away again. Let us leave him, and follow the apothecary. He had had just wine enough; which circumstance was to him the most potent reason for having more. He had put up at the Flask at Hampstead; and to that hostelry he strode, St. Giles silently following him..

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"My man," said Crossbone, "who was your father-where were you born-what have you been doing and where do you come from? An answer if you please to each of these questions."

St. Giles, plucking up courage, simply replied" I am his Lordship's servant; and have his orders to follow you."

There's not the slightest doubt, his Lordship's servant, that you're a convenient raseal of all work, and quite up to the business we shall put you on." Let not the reader imagine that these words were uttered by Crossbone: by no means; not a syllable of them. But the thought-the ethereal essence of words -had touched the brain of the apothecary, and his whole frame tingled with the awakened music. He had found a scoundrel, he was sure of it, and he was happy.

"Very good, my man; very good; I understand you. As you say, you are his lordship's servant, and have his lordship's orders to take my directions. Very well. You will therefore please to take your father and mother from my hands: understand for once that they were honest, respectable people; and be grateful for the parents I've given you. Your father, good man! was killed by a windmill; and your mother still lives in the country, and regularly takes three-fourths of your wages. And you are not to forget that you have a great love for that mother. And now,

take this prescription to the apothecary's; tell him to make it up, and send to Mr. Snipeton's. After which, you'll come to me at the Flask. Go." St. Giles, with perplexed looks, obeyed Crossbone, and went upon his errand. "I've given the vagabond a father and mother to be proud of it's quite clear, much better than were really bestowed upon him; and he hasn't a word of thanks to say upon the matter. Let a gentleman lie as he will for the lower orders, they're seldom grateful. Nevertheless, let us have the virtue that he wants. Were he a piece of pig-headed honesty, he wouldn't suit our work. No: Providence has been very good in sending us a rascal." With these mute thoughts, this final thanksgiving, did Crossbone step onward to the Flask. He would there further ponder on the plan that, throwing Snipeton's young wife into the arms of a young nobleman-and, in common justice, so old and vulgar a man had no claim to such refinement and beauty; she must have been originally intended for high life, and therefore cruelly misapplied-would throw him, Crossbone, the prime conspirator, into the very highest practice. He would keep a carriage! As he looked at the glorious clouds, coloured by the setting sun, he felt puzzled whether his coach panels should be a bright blue, a flame-coloured yellow, or a rich mulberry. Still the clouds changed and shifted, and still with the colour of his carriage at his heart, he looked upon them as no other than a celestial pattern-book, rolled out to help him in his choice. The wide west was streaked and barred with gold; and staring at it, Crossbone was determined that lace-three-inch lace should blaze upon his liveries. And rapt in this sweet dream, he walked on, his heart throbbing to the rumbling of his coach wheels. That music was so sweet, so deep, absorbing, that accompanying his footsteps, he was within a few paces of the Flask ere he saw a crowd gathered about the door, and heard the words "he's killed." His professional zeal was immediately quickened, and hurrying into the middle of the crowd, he saw the body of a man, apparently lifeless, carried towards the inn. The people crowded around, and by their very anxiety impeded the progress of the bearers towards the door. "Stand aside, folks-stand aside," cried Crossbone, "I'm a physician; that is, a medical man. Keep his head up, fellow."

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"Get out o' the way,' exclaimed a stranger, "you don't know how to carry a fellow-cretur," and the benevolent new-comer thrust aside the rustic who was, awkwardly enough, supporting

the shoulders of the wounded man, and with admirable zeal, and great apparent tenderness, relieved him of the charge. Poor soul poor soul!" he cried, much affected, "I do wonder if he's a wife and family?"

"A bed-room; immediately a bed-room," exclaimed Crossbone, and his sudden patient was carried up-stairs, Crossbone following. As he ascended, a horse bathed in foam, and every muscle quivering, was led to the door.

It's my belief that that Claypole sends out his boy to fly his kite a purpose to kill people, that he may bury 'em. That's the third horse he's frit this week; the little varmint! And this looks like death any how." Thus delivered himself, a plainspoken native of Hampstead.

"You may say death. Cracked like a egg-shell;" and saying this, the speaker significantly pointed to his own skull. The doctor's a trying to get blood: it's my opinion he might as well try a tomb-stone. Well, this is a world, isn't it? I often thanks my luck I can't afford a horse; for who's safe a-horseback? A man kisses his wife and his babbies, if he has 'em, when he mounts his saddle of a mornin'-and his wife gets him lamb and sparrow-grass, or something nice for supper,'xpecting him home. She listens for his horse's feet, and he's brought to his door in a shell."

Well, mate, you do speak a truth; nobody can deny that," said one of the mob; who, it is probable, scarcely dreamt that the sometime moralist and truth were so very rarely on speaking terms. And this the reader will, doubtless, admit, when we inform him that the man who so humanely, so affectionately lent his aid to the thrown horseman, helping to bear him with all tenderness up stairs, was Mr. Thomas Blast. It was his business, or rather, as he afterwards revealed, his pleasure to be at Hampstead-his solemn pleasure. At this moment, St. Giles on his return from the apothecary's, came to the inn-door. Ere he was well aware of the greeting, his hand was grasped by Blast," Well, how do you do? Who'd have thought to see you here?" Who, in sooth, but Blast himself, seeing that he had dogged his prey from St. James's-square? "Ha! my good friend," cried Blast, very much moved, "you don't know the trouble I 've had since we met. But you must see it in my looks. Tell me, aint I twenty years older?

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"I don't see it," muttered St. Giles: though, assuredly,

such a sight would have carried its pleasure to the runaway transport.

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! Ha! you won't see it; that's so like a friend. But don't let us stand in the street; come in and have a pot; for I've somethin' to say that 'll set your art a bleeding." Hoping, praying, that Crossbone might not observe him-and feeling dwarfed, powerless, under the will of Blast,-St. Giles turned into a sideroom with his early teacher and destroyer.

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"I don't feel as if I could do anything much in the way of drink," said Blast, to the waiter following, and so, a little brandyand-water. Well, you wonder to see me at Hampstead, I dare say? You can't guess what brings me here?"

"No," said St. Giles. "How should I?"

I'm a altered man. I come here all this way for nothin' else but to see the sun a settin'. Your health;" and Blast, as he said, did nothing in the way of drink: for he gulped his brandy-and

water!

"To see the sun a-setting!" cried St. Giles; we fear, too, a little incredulously.

* Ha! you're young, and likes to see him a gettin' up; it's natrul; but when you're my time o' life, and have stood the wear and tear o' the world as I have, you'll rather look at the sun when he sets, then. And, do you know why? You don't? I'll tell you. Acause, when he sets, he reminds you of where you 're agoing. I never thought I should ha' been pulled up in the way I have been. But trouble's done it. My only comfort's now to look at the settin' sun-and he sets nowhere so stylishly as here at Hampstead."

"Humph! And so you've had trouble?" said St. Giles, coldly.

"Don't talk in that chilly way, as if your words was hailstones. I feel as if I could fall on your neck, and cry like a 'oman. Don't freeze me in that manner. I said trouble. Loss o' property, and death.”

"Death!" cried St. Giles.

"Little Jingo. That apple o' both my child. Well, he was too clever to live long. Much too for'ard for his age. He's

gone.

eyes; that tulup of a I always thought it. And now he's gone,

I do feel that I was his father." St. Giles stifled a rising groan. "But-it's my only comfort-he's better looked arter now than with me."

"No doubt," said St. Giles with a quickness that made Blast "I mean, if he is where you hope he is."

stare.

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"I should like to pay him some respect. I don't want to do much but I know it's a weakness; still a man without a weakness has no right to live among men ; he's too good for this sinful world. As I was saying, I know it's a weakness: still, I should like to wear a little bit o' black-if it was only a rag, so it was black. You couldn't lend me nothing, could you? Only a coat would be something to begin with.”

St. Giles pleaded in exeuse his very limited wardrobe ; and Blast was suddenly satisfied.

"Well, he 's gone; and if I was to go as black as a nigger, he wouldn't rest the better for 't. Besides, the settin' sun tells me we shan't be long apart. Nothing like sunsets to pull a man up; and so you'll know when you 've had my trouble. Your health agin."

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"And you have had a loss of property besides?" asked St. Giles.

"Look here," cried Blast, taking off his hat and: rumpling up his hair: "there's a change! Once as black as a crow; and now -oh, my dear friend"-St. Giles shrunk at the appeal as at a presented pistol-" if you want to put silver on a man's head, you've only to take all the gold out of his pocket. Had a loss! You may say a loss. I tell you what it is: it's no use for a man' to think of being honest in this world: it isn't. I've tried, and I give

it up.

That's a pity," said St. Giles: knowing not what to sayknowing not how to shake off his tormentor.

"Why, it is; for a man doesn't often make his mind up to it. Well, I've had my faults, I know; who hasn't? Still, I did think to reform when I got that lump of money; and more, I did think to make a man of you. I'd chalked out the prettiest, innocentest life for both on us. I'll make a sojer of Jingo, I thought; yes, I'll buy him some colours for the army, and make him a gen'lman at once. And then I thought we would so enjoy ourselves! We'd ha' gone and been one all among the lower orders. In summer time we'd ha' played at knock 'em-downs with 'em, jest to show we was all made o' the same stuff; and in winter we wouldn't ha' turned up our noses at hot-cockles, or blind-man's buff, or nothin' of the sort; but ha' been as free and comfortable with the swinish multitude (for I did begin to think 'em that when

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